Marta Taylor

My name is Marta Taylor and I love being a children’s book illustrator. I would have never thought that life would take me in this direction, especially after working and leaving my drawing hobby untouched for years. I feel so happy now to have gotten back to illustrating and have found my true passion for it.

It all started at the end of the world in New Zealand. I was a very cute, chubby, and adventurous kid. In NZ I was in my element, I’ve always had a passion for nature (what better place than a lost rural town?) and animals held a big place in my heart. I was extremely happy there, but my mom was missing her country. My parents, my two older sisters and I moved to Spain, at the other end of the world.

I was bombarded with a whole new and bizarre culture. Not only everything was done different, but I had to learn two new languages from scratch to be able to talk to anyone! My sisters caught on quite quickly to the change, but I struggled to interact with people. Not only the language barrier was difficult, but so many other things were so odd!

You see, I was a bit of a wild kid, to say politely. And in Barcelona things were civilised. I had to learn to wear shoes and the roads were actually used by cars! I learnt to eat lots of weird stinky foods, and to understand that when people are yelling in the streets, they are actually just greeting each other (like so many Mediterranean countries!).

Reading comics was an escape for me and my sister. We got so absorbed in them and I started sketching inspired by them. I learnt how to draw anatomy when I should’ve been paying attention in class and perspectives by copying photos. Colour pallets, even these days, I just go with my gut feeling since I’m a bit colour blind… Drawing opened a fantasy world for me, and I absolutely loved it.

Then, like most people, you find a job, start working, and don’t have time to do any of your hobbies. Several years went by like this until I had a knee injury. I spent a whole year at home not being able to walk. Right after I got my knee operation and just after being able to go outside again came the pandemic lockdown. You can imagine how tough it was for me to spend nearly two years at home! That’s when it came back to me: I wanted to start drawing again.

Turns out that such a hard time in my life has later bought me so much joy. I am so happy to have taken up illustrating again and now I’m able to dedicate to it not only as a hobby but creating wonderful picture books for so many children to enjoy.

I wish to bring happiness and brightness into peoples lives after those difficult times, that’s why my art is so vibrant of colour, with soft textures and a little bit messy. I am so proud that people consider my art cosy and warm and I hope to continue sharing these feelings in my future projects.

These days you can find me happily living in a small town on the Mediterranean coast with my partner and my joyful dog Kiwi. I love going on long walks in the mountains with him and I travel whenever I can. I still forget to put my shoes on sometimes when I leave home.